In this second letter to you, I will try to clear up another confusion. There has been discussion for over two hundred years as to what parts of the Declaration of Independence I actually wrote. As I said then, I merely tried to express the sentiments of the people, and I certainly did draw from the words of many others in the process, and I used some of my own ideas as well. I wrote the draft using my memory of these sources, and then there was editing by the committee of five and then by the whole Continental Congress. It was a joint effort.

In this letter I wish to focus on just one of the changes that was made to my original draft, for I have heard it said many times that I wrote the famous lines that follow:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Well, I must admit that I didn’t write the opening words of that sentence, about these truths being “self-evident.” Rather, I wrote:

“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, that all men are created equal, …” 

As original documents show today, one of the committee members, Benjamin Franklin, crossed out the words “sacred and undeniable” and wrote in “self-      evident,” a change which the Congress accepted. Dr. Franklin apparently favored a more scientific, analytical, empirical phrase, such as what Isaac Newton might have supported. Self-evident truths were considered by many to be those that could be established by reason, by analysis, and by definition, through use of the enlightened rational mind.

I can understand the reason for the change Dr. Franklin made, for he perhaps felt that I was implying that the equality of humankind, and the unalienable rights flowing to all from our Creator, are given to us by the religions, and thus could be taken away by them as well.  He may have been concerned that my use of “sacred and undeniable” was too suggestive of religious influence upon governance of the country. But I did not say, “religious and undeniable.” I used “sacred and un- deniable” in an attempt to underscore my belief that the equality of each individual depends not on religions, not on governmental structures or documents, not on opinions, but on the innate sacredness of each person.

I believe that the use of “self-evident” can condition us to use primarily our logical and rational minds when we try to determine who is equal, and who deserves the unalienable rights. If I use my rational mind to try to prove equality, my mind sees inequality of individual human experience, living conditions, differences in intelligence, cultural practices, physical features, actions and beliefs, and so on. My mind may conclude that equality is not self- evident at all, but merely a myth. Each “self” has a different opinion of what is evident. My reasoned mind is not an adequate measuring stick for deciding equality. My mathematical and scientific mind tells me that “equal” means the same in all respects, and that is not what my mind sees in the world around me, thus it can appear untrue and even hypocritical to say it is self-evident that all humans are created equal.

There are some Christian fundamentalists and neoconservative leaders within our country today who are using the ideas of the Declaration of Independence as a primary justification for a war on the Constitution, and for a continuous war of “Liberation” anywhere they deem necessary in the world. They use my very words to say that, since God has given us equality, liberty, and the right to pursue our happiness, then they as the representatives of God have the right to spread that freedom by whatever means their rational minds determine. They are using the words of the Bible, the command to make believers of all the world, in conjunction with the words of the Declaration of Independence, to justify the silencing of  dissent, and to promote the enforcement of so-called democracy anywhere. In my view, their thinking, which seems perfectly logical and self-evident to them, ignores the sacred and undeniable equality of all people.

In the Notes on the State of Virginia that I wrote in 1781, I asked, “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?” I still believe the same today. God gives us our liberties, but God does not give them to only those of one particular religion or country, nor does God give those of a particular religion or country the license to enforce their religious or political views on all others. I don’t believe that is what any of the Founders of the religions of the world taught, and I don’t believe that is what we Founders of this country expressed in our Declaration of Independence.

I wrote in my previous letter that I do not any longer swear eternal hostility against tyranny over the mind of man, for eternal hostility is to me an impossibility, something akin to hell. But, as one of the Founders of this country, I do swear non-violent hostility here and now against some of our own religious and govern- mental leaders who have been carrying out their plan to free all of mankind in the name of God, without respect for individual sacred- ness. I also said in that first letter that I now believe every action we humans take is either a giving of love or asking for love. So my hostility toward tyranny must of necessity include my search for what it is that my radical religious and political brothers and sisters are giving me of love, or asking for me to give them, and what are we each calling forth from the other. 

I believe that we are equally eternal, powerful creative loving spiritual beings having a physical experience, even if our equality is not self-evident in a particular lifetime we are living out. We need to take the proof of equality beyond our rational minds, beyond what we can reason out, beyond even what our organized religions and governments sometimes tell us about who is worthy and equal. When we were incarnated over 200 years ago, we had a political revolution to carry out. Today we are back to carry out a spiritual revolution that
recognizes and actualizes the sacredness of each being. Now is the time, and the work of many is required as it was before, so let us proceed with hope and determination and love.

(as imagined/interpreted by Thomas Hansen, Ph.D., Charlottesville, VA email:Thansen103@aol.com)